Question about Strength & conditioning exercises for badminton

Discussion in 'Techniques / Training' started by chevy75, Nov 10, 2020.

  1. chevy75

    chevy75 Regular Member

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    Hey guys,

    I've been working out at the gym (under a personal trainer) for about 5 months now (2-3 times a week) and we have been working on a lot of strength and power building exercises on both the upper and lower body. eg walking lunges with dumbells, split squats, hamstring curls, shoulder and chess presses, push/pull and jerk, deadlifts etc.

    I'm seeing a lot of improvement in terms of the amount of weight I can lift at the gym but am not seeing much improvement on court. I'm probably less prone to injury now but other than that am not really seeing the results on court. eg increase in smashing power, faster foot work speed etc. I've discussed this with my trainer but he is not familiar with the sport so wondering if anyone here to help?

    The area I'd like to improve on the most would be my backward movement. I can't seem to move to the backcourt quick enough and assumed that I needed more strength in my legs but having strengthened them for 5 months I'm not seeing any difference.

    What other exercises should I be doing? Am I doing the wrong type of exercises and therefore not seeing results on court?
     
    #1 chevy75, Nov 10, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2020
  2. asadafgs

    asadafgs Regular Member

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    Well first, 2-3 times a week of conditioning is not a lot, but you should still be able to see improvement. Lifting weights for strength isn't that effective in terms of improving speed the court. You'll see improvement in on court speed from doing any generic sports training. It doesn't need to be sports specific. What you described is more bodybuilding and less sports conditioning
     
  3. Signature

    Signature Regular Member

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    Imo you should add some exercises focusing on explosiveness with less weight instead of lifting big weight slowly, "Don't train like a tow truck, train like a ferrari". Examples of this could be Hang Clean or just doing your regular exercises with faster lifting time and less weight (Power = force * velocity). Also focus on core exercises since a stable core is involved in every single aspect of badminton, aswell as speed / agility drills for footwork or do shadow badminton.

    If you want to see badminton specific improvement, you should play more badminton and have more time on the court. Don't go all out playing to exhaution 3 times a week but instead strive to play at 70% 5 times a week.
     
  4. Mason

    Mason Regular Member

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    As someone who has used strength training to help me become more athletic I would say just keep doing what you are doing. Use your weight room training to get stronger. By getting stronger you will less likely be injured , you will have the potential to play at a higher intensity during a rally and you will have the potential to be more explosive.

    so continue with the strength training and as you work on your footwork , you will have more potential to be quicker and more explosive on your footwork because of your strength base.

    if you post a video of yourself playing and or lifting weights , that could be used to provide more specific feedback as well.
     
  5. Budi

    Budi Regular Member

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    You can train your muscle by lifting heavy object, getting Hulk muscular size, & eventually able to lift a car, but all that wont help in badminton. Your body had the endurance to sustain massive stress but lack on explosiveness which an important thing on badminton. Its not about you can lift 100KG weight & hold for 1 minute but its about lifting & putting back 10KG object 10x under 1 minute.

    Simulate badminton action with added little weight for training. The little weight will provide you additional stress to strengthen your body but at the same time maintain your explosiveness.
     
  6. Mason

    Mason Regular Member

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    A stronger athlete has the potential to be a more explosive athlete and an athlete that is less likely to get injured.
    This is why most professional athletes including the top tier badminton athletes are all very strong. Now mind you many of these players are genetic outliers and are naturally strong and explosive however the formula for explosiveness remains the same ... it starts with a good strength base.


    In badminton however it seems that technique and footwork completely overshadow the importance of strength work. Footwork and technique will provide the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to badminton.... So as I mentioned it seems reasonable for a recreational athlete to use the weight room to build general strength and for injury prevention. This will allow him to have the potential to be explosive once his footwork and technique is good and also help so that he doesn’t get injured as often
     
    dnewguy, llrr and speCulatius like this.
  7. chevy75

    chevy75 Regular Member

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    Thanks everyone for your input.

    Yes Mason that is my personal trainers philosophy as well..that a good strength base builds the foundation of explosiveness. That being the case what would you say the reason is for me not being able to see any improvement in explosiveness after having built up some strength?

    Also for a recreational athlete like myself what do you think would be a good balance between strength training and footwork drills (eg shadow and agility drills). Ie how many hours per week should I spend on footwork and agility vs strength training (I'm currently on 2 hours per week for strength training)?
     
  8. Mason

    Mason Regular Member

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    Regarding your first question, why havnt you seen any increase in explosiveness.... I would think that there are two reasons why you havnt noticed an increase.
    1.) you may not have increased your true strength very much. For example you may have got stronger in the gym but some of that strength may be due to just learning the lifts and being more proficient in those lifts.
    can you tell me what your workout plan looks like now along with how much weight that you currently use ?
    2.) the second reason why you may not have seen an increase of explosiveness is that your footwork may not be efficient enough. It doesn’t matter how strong or fast you are, if your footwork technique is poor you will not be able to transfer that strength and speed to the court.

    Regardless of what the reason is , be patient. It takes a long time to improve your strength to see noticeable difference in your game. ( unless you are a freak it nature athlete)

    Now on to your second question. The best way for me to provide some assistance there would be find out about you. How much you workout vs doing footwork drills will very much depend on your goals and more importantly your ability to recover. Younger ones can recover much faster than only ones.
    1.) how old are you ?
    2.)how often do you play badminton ?
    3:) what does your current strength training consist of ( be specific with weights and sets and reps )

    Once you answer some of those questions I can try to assist you more so
     
  9. chevy75

    chevy75 Regular Member

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    Thanks Mason for offering to help me.

    My work out plan consists roughly of the following exercises : (I do 3 sets of 8 reps). Upper body is 1 session and lower another so total 2 sessions per week. Some weeks we add in a couple of power movements. Didnt mention earlier that I'm a 42 year old female :)

    lower body
    - hamstring curl (15kg)
    - pendulum squat (25kg)
    - deadlift (30kg)
    - walking lunge (11kg)
    - calf raises (just started this so on light weights only)
    - back extensions (empty)
    - hanging leg raises (empty)

    upper body
    - standing shoulder press with dumbells (8kg)
    - bicep curls (8kg)
    - tricep curls on machine (cant recall weight)
    - bench press with dumbells (11kg) per side
    - rotational shoulder press (6kg)

    power movements
    - squat jump (cant recall)
    - push jerk (20kg)

    In terms of badminton I train with a coach once a week for an hour and play social games 3x a week. I'd say I'm probably at intermediate level as played for the district in my teens but then laid off for a couple of decades and only started picking it up again 5 years ago.

    At the moment I don't actually do any speed/agility work at all.
     
  10. Mason

    Mason Regular Member

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    Ok this is good information. Can I ask , when you were young were you an explosive player ? Is that why you think that you should be more explosive now ?

    The fact that you are over 40 is good to know because your main concern will be to not get injured. I am 37 years old am I started badminton around 3 years ago so I am in a similar situation as far as when it comes to recovery and injury prevention. So once again you should use the weight room to maintain and build general strength , especially in your lower body. If you do this properly it will help you to not get injured when you play badminton. Secondly you as you get more proficient in your footwork , you will see changes in your explosiveness on court. But unless you were a naturally explosive female athlete when you young, expect any changes to your explosiveness to come gradually.

    remember that strength X speed = power
    Power is essentially explosiveness ( assuming you have good footwork)

    Your clearly have a lot of room to grow when it comes to your strength in the weight room. Because you are playing badminton and getting an hour of coaching I would stick with working out 2 days per week.

    badminton uses a lot of quads , so it’s important that you get your quads strong , but it’s equally Important for the back side of your body to be strong to ( hamstrings and glutes) so that you do not get injured.
    I would change your routine to 2 full body days per week and do something like this

    Day 1
    Hamstring curl 3x8
    Pendulum Squat 4x6
    Shoulder Press 3x8-12
    Some type of horizontal row 3x12-15
    Back extensions 2x as many reps as possible ( make sure to engage the glutes for this and not the lower back )


    Day 2
    Deadlift 3x5
    Lunges 4x 8-12
    Lat Pull down or pull ups 4x8-12
    DB bench 3x8

    This setup is more balanced for your body. Also every week add weight or reps to each lift so that you keep getting stronger. You should be able to do this for many weeks or even months. The main thing to focus on is good form for your lifts.

    once you get a more solid strength base you can add some explosive work to your weight lifting session.

    hopefully this helps and let me know if you have any other questions.
     
  11. chevy75

    chevy75 Regular Member

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    Thanks for your advice Mason.

    To be honest I can't quite recall my badminton days as I stopped playing at quite a young age..14 or so. But from what I vaguely remember I think I was just an average player in terms of explosiveness. The reason I think I should be more explosive is because I was given some feedback from ex pro players that I'm not explosive enough especially when I'm on the attack...e.g smashing or attacking clear

    You mentioned I have a lot of room to grow when it comes to strength....Could you give me an idea of the sort of weights that I should be aiming for? eg for hamstring curls and walking lunges?

    Should I be adding in any speed/agility work at the moment? Would that help?
     
  12. Mason

    Mason Regular Member

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    it’s easy for an ex pro player to say “ you need to be more explosive ....” usually pro players are naturally strong and explosive and of course have great badminton training so quite often their advice is not practical for a normal person.

    Instead of focusing on getting to a certain strength level just keep trying to improve week after week.
    But as a goal you should be able to do reps with your body weight for squats and deadlifts
     
  13. Mason

    Mason Regular Member

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    Speed and agility work could help.... but your probably be better off doing footwork drills and that will help with your speed and agility
     
  14. Tabatchu

    Tabatchu Regular Member

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    Keep doing what you are doing for strength and conditioning and ask your trainer to also include Olympic lifting as it will help with explosiveness in general. Since your goal is to improve your badminton skill there is no way around but to get a badminton coach who will feed you shuttles focusing on certain strokes and drills. They all go hand in hand. Good luck.
     
  15. viver

    viver Regular Member

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    #15 viver, Nov 15, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2020
  16. viver

    viver Regular Member

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    Strength training is beneficial for your overall conditioning and should keep doing it. As for badminton skills improvement, you may want to work on drills depending on your skills level - i.e. moving from base court to front forehand court. If you are fairly comfortable moving to just 1 point, you can mix moving to 2 points (forehand and backhand front court) and then progressing to 4 or 6 points.

    Finding better opponents that force you to play your best will also help you becoming a faster player. From there you may find your weak points and work to improve on them. Ultimately, if you are really serious about improving your badminton skills you should find a professional coach for advice, could be a 1 on 1 or in a group session.
     
  17. llrr

    llrr Regular Member

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    Gym is not helping you on court because badminton requires you to train in multiple areas. In the gym you are working a lot more of the fast-twitch muscles. These have low endurance and high output, the type that grows and is helpful for bodybuilders. You want a certain amount of these muscles for strength and explosiveness (but no more, you never see badminton players being really big). On top of explosiveness you need the aerobic stamina and leg endurance for rallies (especially if you play a lot of singles). This needs development of slow-twitch muscles which are the high endurance type. You need to do things like running, elliptical, bikes, and stair climbing, the generally more aerobic workouts to build your fitness and these muscles in your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves. Then after all of this, with muscles developed, you then need to train them correctly with the right footwork, otherwise you will still lose to someone who has better footwork but less conditioning. This requires you to concentrate on staying on the balls of your feet, correct split-steps, efficiently movement around the court, and on top of that, correct racquet techniques (grip, shoulders, forearms, elbow, fingers, and body rotation (hips, core), to maximize all of the conditioning you are doing in the gym. As you can see, you are not going to see results very quickly with any single type of training. This is also why badminton is the best sport :D
     
  18. ralphz

    ralphz Regular Member

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    So just to be clear what you are saying there as a goal that she should be able to do.

    A deadlift with the bar loaded to weigh as much as her bodyweight,, and a squat with a bar loaded with her bodyweight on her back?
     
    #18 ralphz, Nov 15, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2020
  19. ralphz

    ralphz Regular Member

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    Supposing for a moment that that's a good idea. There is a lot of technique to learn to do olympic weightlifting(maybe not compared to badminton, but still a lot), it's a project in itself to learn the technique for that, and most trainers can't even do it and don't teach it.. And there's even training to develop the flexibility to do some of the positions. There are Olympic weightlifting clubs where there would be coaches that can do it. But she's probably not even signed up to such a club. If you just go to a gym and find a personal trainer, the chances are almost nil that they're right for training Olympic weightlifting! She said she's been "working out at the gym (under a personal trainer)"
     
    #19 ralphz, Nov 15, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2020

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